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Paul Coates was an enigmatic god to his sons: a Vietnam vet who rolled with the Black Panthers, an old-school disciplinarian and new-age believer in free love, an autodidact who launched a publishing company in his basement dedicated to telling the true history of African civilization. Most of all, he was a wily tactician whose mission was to carry his sons through inner-city adolescence--and through Baltimore in the Age of Crack--and into the safe arms of Howard University, where he worked so his children could attend for free. Among his brood of seven, his main challenges were Ta-Nehisi, spacy and sensitive and almost comically miscalibrated for his environment, and Big Bill, charismatic and all-too-ready for the challenges of the streets. This book follows their divergent paths, and their father's steadfast efforts to keep them whole in a world that seemed bent on their destruction.--From publisher description.… (more)
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baltimore.
mecca.
chuck d.
"All of us knew he was flawed, but still he retained the aura of a prophet."
One father. Seven children. Five boys. Two girls. Four mothers. Ta-Nehisi Coates has written about the beautiful struggle of raising Black boys in a country that never wanted them to be
”He was a practicing fascist, mandating books and banning religion.”
Paul Coates’s most prized possession was his printing press where he resurrected old out of print African-American books and pamphlets. The press and Coates constant pressure on his sons to get the “knowledge” was the cause of constant scorn from Ta-Nehisi. Ta-Nehisi only wanted to read comic books but Hip-Hop is what brought him to the “knowledge.” In the rhymes he heard the people and places that his father had been talking about for years. So he finally sought out the press without any coaxing from his father. As a student Ta-Nehisi just barely kept his head above water. His mind wandered. He was always on guard against the neighbor thugs. He was awkward. His parent’s dreams of him going to the Mecca were diminishing fast. The Mecca was Howard University. Paul took a job there just so his children could receive free tuition. When it came Ta-Nehisi’s turn Paul was leaving Howard and Ta-Nehisi would have to get in on his own merits. He got in but barely and because of a lot of leg work from his mother.
As much as Ta-Nehisi looked up to and revered his father he held the same reverence and awe for his big brother, Big Bill. Bill could simply be described as a loose cannon. One of Paul’s Panther comrades was Afeni Shakur. Afeni and her children Tupac and Sekyiwa were family friends. Growing up Ta-Nehisi always seemed to be walking in the dark but a chance meeting with a djembe brought the light. It was like the drumming redeemed him and there was something he finally connected with. The women were lost in this memoir. They remained in the shadows. Overall, I fell in love with this dysfunctional/nuclear family.
"To be a black male is to be always at war…"
Walter
Having lived in DC and Maryland during the years Coates was growing up in Baltimore and aspiring to Howard University, I connected all the more with Coates’ memoir. But, even those readers not familiar with the world Coates inhabited will find The Beautiful Struggle a beautiful read. Sorry, I couldn’t resist . . .
The book's very much about fathers, sons, brothers, friends - it's about manhood, and masculinity, and carving meaning and identity for yourself in a world that will rip it from you as fast as it can. And while I understand the need, the drive for the space and ritual of manhood that acts as this book's center stage, I missed the women. More than missed them, I wondered who they were, and how their lives looked, living and growing up and trying to survive - even flourish - in West Baltimore.
The boys are pushed by their parents to rise above the beefs and violence of their Baltimore neighborhood, but the deal is that at 18, each is a man on his own. Bill the son struggles mightily against the raging river of the streets and mostly succeeds, and with the book's ending he is hanging on at Howard University, where Bill the father was employed for years to send his two daughters and Bill to "Mecca" for free.
Ta-Nehisi is a nerd who can't dance, gets chosen last or not at all for basketball, and uses all his skills to avoid beatdowns. He is so restless that he is unable to focus on anything in school, where he slides into an exam high school. His magnetic attraction to the djimbe drum pulls him into a thriving pro-African culture within the black community. Yet through his own stubbornness that seems to rise only when he is on the edge of failure, Ta-Nehisi survives where many of his neighborhood friends do not. In fact, he thrives and rises to become a most talented writer and keenest observer of the era of Crack that took so many away, by death and incarceration.